Don’t Come For the First Lady While She Is Speaking, Or She May Come Back at You with a Vengeance (w/Update)

UPDATE (06/06/13, 12:05 p.m.) A rather lopsided video of the incident surfaced on CNN yesterday evening. Check it out:

As if to confirm what I said below about passive aggressive behavior evinced by Ellen Sturtz, GetEqual, her organization, began making noises about how terrible the First Lady was to the interloper as News One related:

The organization is already throwing around “aggressive,” and insinuating that the FLOTUS was trying to be intimidating; this means the “Angry Black Woman” characterizations are not far behind.

Sturtz is reportedly on Twitter (@eos16), but with the First Lady’s supporters on a rampage, she’s understandably keeping a low social media profile.

I’ve noticed that everyone writing about this is bringing up the fact that Ellen Sturtz is gay and are unsuccessfully using it as a shield. Sturtz’s behavior was wrong, and her sexual orientation does not magically absolve her of that. Her being gay doesn’t make it okay for her tell the First Lady to tell her husband what she, Sturtz, wants them to do…as though they were a couple of old house slaves.

[…]

This is a weak attempt to make Sturtz look innocent and helpless (you know…like a white damsel in distress?). Let’s be logical about this: you heckled a guest speaker. Contrary to how you’re trying to portray yourself, you interrupted her multiple times (big surprise). You expected her to, what…like it? Enjoy it? Get on her knees and beg for more?

I’m glad Michelle basically told Sturtz to go fuck herself because this had me flashing back to every white girl who ever got up in my face, issuing orders, rolling her eyes, throwing tantrums, and demanding to be catered to…just ’cause. That is a very real, very constant part of POC life in America. You can be the First Lady of the United States of America, and it obviously won’t change a damn thing.

So don’t mess with the Queen, or she will take your head off so nicely you won’t even know what happened.

_____________________

Michelle Obama’s retort to a gay rights activist who interrupted her speech recently is really getting traction. This came from a FB group of black women and the feeling is unanimous: black people are tired of this kind of disrespect occurring with the First Couple, and many are very happy that Michelle stood her ground (Courtesy: Awesomely Luvvie on FB)

For Harriet, a website for black women, has just released an audio of what occurred last night at that private DNC fundraiser First Lady Michelle Obama headlined in which she confronted a gay rights activist who interrupted her, and I felt that it was high time to talk about this incident. I couldn’t embed the audio from For Harriet, but I found another source that had the audio on You Tube. You may have to rewind and play it back to get the gist of what was being said, because Michelle is unmiked, people around her were talking, and because the recording unit was probably several paces back. Apparently, there had been an earlier interruption of another speaker, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, before Michelle spoke, so the First Lady may have been forearmed.

“One of the things that I don’t do well is this,” replied Obama to loud applause. She left the lectern and approached the protester, inviting the woman to “listen to me, or you can take the mic, but I’m leaving. You all decide. You have one choice.”

The crowd shouted that they wanted Obama to stay, and one woman near the protester said, “You need to go!”

The protester was then escorted out, saying she wanted “federal equality before I die.”

Sister, I agree, but this ain’t the way. And not because I believe that Barack and Michelle are untouchable. Interrupting President Obama and First Lady Michelle has become a sore point among African Americans, because No. 1, it shows a withering disrespect for who they are and what they do for the country, whether one likes it or not. They have a right to be heard because they are the leaders of the country. To disrespect them is also disrespect for the American presidency, and by extension, African Americans. The deep dig at blacks has been well-noted.

This is a photo reportedly from the Facebook page of Ellen Sturtz, who interrupted Michelle Obama last night at a fundraiser (Courtesy: Facebook)

And the Obamas are getting it from all sides, from right-wing hecklers who don’t believe that Barack Obama should be president despite the will of the people, to Medea Benjamin recently at a White House press conference, who felt that we had to pull out from Iraq now (and I agree with this myself) and now this. That the hecklers have been mostly white is particularly galling. It’s racism from the left as well as the right. Have you ever heard of a person of color interrupting the President or his wife? If any black person did something like this in public, it would be the equivalent of someone forgetting their home training. The entire neighborhood would waiting on the culprit when s/he returned home.

In an interview later with The Huffington Post, Sturtz, a divorced lesbian, said she didn’t go to the event intending to interrupt Obama. She said she instead planned to reach out to someone from the DNC about her concerns. But as the first lady urged the audience to make the country a better place for the next generation, Sturtz said she decided to speak up.

“I want to talk about the children,” she said. “I want to talk about the LGBT young people who are … being told, directly and indirectly, that they’re second-class citizens. I’m tired of it. They’re suffering. … We’ve been asking president to sign that ENDA executive order for five years. How much longer do we need to wait?”

Like I said, while I support this order/bill, I don’t support the means by which this LGBT activist is agitating for change. And what is interesting to me is that at first, Sturtz was intimidated by the First Lady:

In an interview, Sturtz told the Washington Post, that she was stunned by the first lady’s response to her heckling.

“She came right down in my face,” Sturtz told the Post. “I was taken aback.”

WTF What the hell did you expect? The nerve, the sheer effrontery, and the lack of respect evinced by Sturtz trying to hijack the event. Couldn’t she have lobbied for a private meeting with the First Lady to talk about her concerns? And let me tell readers something else. Michelle was not “in her face.” She made eye contact. She looked directly at Sturtz. Speaking directly and firmly as Michelle did was not a verbal attack. It was a request for respect. Black women/people get this all the time from whites who speak disrespectfully towards them, as if blacks cannot understand plain English. Then, when they are confronted on what they are saying, especially when unaccompanied by swear words, and in the words of someone black who has an intellect, whites suddenly feel that the big bad black person is trying to maim or kill them, and yell for help in order to subdue them and to get what they want. Classic blame-the-victim, passive-aggressive behavior. You don’t say or do such things with impunity. There is a price for such behavior.

“Basically, I was asked by the first lady to be quiet, and I can’t be quiet any longer. … I was surprised by how negative the crowd seemed to be. It was actually a little unsettling and disturbing,” said Sturtz.

“She obviously thought she was going to make an example of me or something. I wasn’t scared at all,” she added.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not pleased about things that the president has done and not done. I cannot stand Eric Holder. The president’s still dealing with world-class obstructionism from that Congress. He’s wavering on Keystone. Blacks still wonder whether anything substantive will be done addressing their concerns, chiefly jobs and housing. He seems to have reverted to pre-election behavior. Marriage equality is still a good thing, but people are getting fired or harassed for marrying their same-sex partner. Faith has got to move mountains, not just Barack Obama, and for the long haul. He’s not a superhero.

But this is not the way, people. This is not the way. Because we’ve got your number on this one.

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